Remorse for Intemperate Speech
About the text
Yeats first published this poem in 1932. It is out of copyright in Ireland and the EU, but in the United States it stays in copyright until the start of 2028, and this site is served partly from American servers. So for now we give the notes without the full text; it will appear here in 2028.
It begins: I ranted to the knave and fool
In brief
SummaryThe poet traces his fanatic heart back to Ireland itself.
The poet looks back on his own angry speech. He once ranted at knaves and fools, then outgrew that; he found a worthy audience, yet he still cannot govern his fanatic heart. He sought out his betters, people whose fine manners and liberal talk turn hatred into a game, but nothing they said or did could reach that heart. The last stanza explains why. He is Irish, and Ireland, with its great hatred and little room, maimed its people from the start. He carried that fanatic heart from his mother's womb.
Lines to remember
Great hatred, little room,
Line by line
Lines 1 to 5Ranting outgrown
He admits that he once raged at knaves and fools, then left that school behind and found a fitting audience. Still, he cannot rule his fanatic heart. The remorse of the title is real, but so is the sense that change is impossible.
Lines 6 to 10Among his betters
He sought the company of cultivated people whose good manners and liberal speech turn hatred into sport. Their civility, he finds, cannot touch him. The contrast is between those who play at passion and one who is ruled by it.
Lines 11 to 15Out of Ireland
The explanation widens from "I" to "we": all of them came out of Ireland, where great hatred in a small place maimed them at the start. The poem ends with the heart as an inheritance carried from the womb.
Themes
Ireland and hatred
The last stanza is a verdict on Irish history: "Great hatred, little room". Intense grievances packed into a small country have warped its people from birth. Yeats includes himself, so the judgement is both a diagnosis of the nation and a confession.
Self-knowledge
The title promises remorse, and the poem does admit fault, but each stanza ends in the same place: the fanatic heart is unchanged. Education, good company and age cannot alter a temperament inherited from birth. The candour lies in accepting that, rather than pretending to reform.
Context
The poem was collected in The Winding Stair and Other Poems (Macmillan, 1933). His claim to have found a fitting audience echoes Milton's hope, in Paradise Lost, to find a fit audience though few. Yeats had spent decades in Irish public controversy, over the Abbey Theatre, the Hugh Lane pictures and politics, and the poem looks back on that record with mixed pride and regret.
Form
Three five-line stanzas rhyming AABAB, with longer first and fourth lines and short second, third and fifth lines. Each stanza closes on the fanatic-heart refrain, which changes "My" to "A" in the last stanza, turning a personal failing into a shared one. The clipped final lines land like a blow.
